


Walker

by periferal



Category: Original Work
Genre: Confusing relationships, F/F, F/M, Genderqueer Character, Grief, M/M, Mourning, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Self-Indulgent, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse, healing factor, they pronouns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:58:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7104502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/periferal/pseuds/periferal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You could bash my brains in and I’d be fine and dandy moments later. It takes mouths to kill the reborn.”<br/>“Mouths?” I ask, almost stupid. I know what they mean, but I still ask it and they shift their grip on the gun. They’re now holding it two handed, apparently solely for the purpose of looking down at it contemplatively. <br/>“Mouths,” they answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i

“... _ those who love you best, an’ are with you to th’ end... _ ” 

There’s a person, a living one, singing. I recognize the song, from ages ago, I could sing along, if I wanted to, but I don’t.  _ Why would you do that,  _ I think,  _ you fuckin’ idiot, you’re drawin’ ‘em right towards you. _

Whatever it is that’s bringing people back doesn’t make them  _ deaf _ , after all, it just makes them slow and stupid and hungry. And even with her eyes rotted off, a shambles can still hear, can still know from where the sound is coming. It can still go through the basic thinking process of “the sound my food makes is in that direction, therefore my food is there, too,” even if in its stupid, rotted brain “noise food makes” means “every little fucking sound ever.”

The singing vanishes, which isn’t surprising. These tunnels are rabbit-warrens dug by humans, sprawling under what was a city, once. Sound carries strangely down here, as though Echo were living always a few steps ahead. I don’t speak, down here, unless I have to, or like to think I don't. 

A few moments later, the voice is back- whoever they are, they can’t be going very far around, just in circles, maybe, which is easy down here. I can’t hear the exact words, here, just vague sound and what almost sounds like “ _ rise again _ ,” before they go quiet.

Great, one of the cuckoos then, probably. Singing an old song as a new hymn to whatever it is they call the shambles. The blessed, I think, or something, I don’t have to remember what they call it to know that they’re stupid. 

I’m carrying a softball bat, which is smaller than a baseball bat sure, but it’s still metal, and it still can destroy the only thing that keeps a shambles walking easily. And softball is just the better sport. I just have to make sure not to get overwhelmed, which will be easy enough. I consider seeking out the person who was singing and just whacking them over the head. Smash the skull so they don’t go to shambles, put them out of whatever misery induced stupidity they’re in. Stop them from drawing all the shambles in this little section of corridors to me. Maybe, if they have something on them, get food, or ammo for Laina. Maybe they even have pills on them. That would be nice. 

But no, that would mean finding them, and there is a sound to a skull being hit by a bat. It’s a good sound to hear when the thing I’m hitting is only formerly a person but with a real person it’s not worth the risk. And maybe they’re nice, not an idiot, maybe they’re just lost. 

Their voice was broken, even though it’s stupid as fuck for them to be singing, their voice was broken. And I know that song they were singing, and maybe it’s desperate hope and not idiot after-made religion. 

It turns out I don’t have to worry too much about finding them. I’m making my way through a tunnel with old, long unelectrified tracks running along part of the floor, seeking an almost entirely blocked from the outside world subway station I originally entered the tunnels through. I hear the singing again.

It cuts off suddenly. I hear laughter and a gunshot. 

Sound of rotted flesh collapsing on itself. They’re close. 

Running footsteps, and the sound of worn rubber soles halting suddenly on metal and concrete floor. “You’re not rotted,” the person says. They’re bleeding, or possibly were bleeding, but they’re definitely not a shambles- could they be a reborn, stuck down here somehow? They’re holding the gun in one hand- some old lesson from forever ago makes me automatically think  _ don’t hold your finger over the trigger, idiot _ but I don’t know what kind of gun it is specifically. Handgun, obviously, but beyond that, I don’t know. The bullets will probably fits Laina’s.

If they have a gun, then they have ammo. That’s just how this works. Maybe I can get some. 

“No,” I reply, and they grin, broad and horrible. They’re wearing a worryingly stained labcoat- there’s a cut to them, I can recognize it even though it’s not white, even though it’s dry-rust-blood colored. They’re wearing a hat. 

“Oh, good,” they say, “did you hear me singing?” they ask, and I nod. “You gonna try and hit me over the head with that?” they say, looking at my bat. “I could shoot you if you did, I have four bullets left.”

“It wouldn’t hurt me long,” I say, and their grin widens. “You only have four bullets?”

“I had more, but the shambles come to singers,” they say. So they know how stupid they're being. Maybe they are a cuckoo after all. “I wonder if I’ll ever get enough to come to me that I’ll be overwhelmed, there’ll be some many that I won’t be able to regen under all those mouths,” they say, their smile suddenly wiped. 

“You want me to hit you over the head a few times instead? That might just do the job too,” I say. Talking is so stupid, it might just fulfill this crazy’s wish but they’ve been fucking singing, so I don’t know if me staying quiet would make any sort of difference. And I’ve been talking too, without thinking about it, am I so desperate to hear words? 

Strange. 

They cackle, the smile still gone. “Oh, so you haven’t experimented so much with it, have you?” they say, “You could bash my brains in and I’d be fine and dandy moments later. It takes mouths to kill the reborn.”

“Mouths?” I ask, almost stupid. I know what they mean, but I still ask it and they shift their grip on the gun. They’re now holding it two handed, apparently solely for the purpose of looking down at it contemplatively. 

“Mouths,” they answer. 


	2. ii

I can taste blood in my mouth as I hit the ground. I’ve bitten my tongue, or my lips, something, it doesn’t matter, that will go away in seconds. I hear a thud as the singer lands near me. I look up at them, they’re graceful, still on their feet. Catlike, and from down here they look impossibly tall. 

They already looked impossibly tall when I saw them first, but when I’m lying on the ground it forces me to look up at them. I’m still gripping my bat, obviously, it banged into my side as I fell but that’s healing already, like the cuts in my mouth and my possibly broken leg. 

I'm doped up on enough scrounged pain pills that I can't tell what exactly has happened to my leg, but that doesn’t matter because whatever it is is gone, and I pull myself to my feet. “How do you do that,” I say, and the singer shrugs. 

“Luck,” they say. “Your leg broke, and fixed itself, why aren’t you screaming?” they say, and I have to grin a little. 

“Not quite luck,” I say. I shift my grip on the bat, so I’m holding it in my left hand. I use my right to poke at my recently fucked up leg. I wince, a little, as something pushes through the fog of whatever it is I’ve downed today. 

“Do you have a name?” they ask. This is funny to me. We’ve been walking, or falling, or whatever, for a while now, maybe a few hours, I have bad time sense, and I haven’t thought of asking their name, and they haven’t asked mine. 

“Yes,” I say, “I’m not sure I want to tell you.”

“Alan,” they say. “My name,” they go on to explain, laughing, “it’s the only thing that makes us different from the cuckoos, you know?” 

“They don’t have names?” I ask, “Roe, and how can they not have names? That doesn’t work.”

“Oh,” Alan says, “and you ready to walk again?” I nod, “c’mon, and they have words to call each other with, of course, but that’s different, I guess.”

I knock my right hand violently against my leg. It hurts less. Okay, I can definitely walk now. 

“I thought I was guiding you out?” I say, and they shrug. 

“I’m not the one always falling,” they say, “that can’t be good for you, you know.”

“Who was the one making vaguely cryptic sounding references to being eaten alive?” I retort, and to my surprise that makes them laugh. It’s a sudden, surprised noise, but different from the manic giggles I’ve been hearing since we started walking together. 

They stop laughing after a moment, and looks like they're about to say something when a low moan from a few feet behind me declares the ridiculous luck that has kept the shambles out of our path for this long has run out.

“You have four bullets left?” I ask. They nod. There’s only one shambles that I can see, walking with a broken-puppet gait towards us. They don’t walk like in the really bad movies, with their hands out in front of them, because it doesn’t matter, I think, to them, if they bump into something. There’s no reason for them to care, if it’s alive they can eat it, if it’s not they go around it, or continue banging into it, depending on the intelligence of that specific creature.

“Yes,” Alan says, and they’ve flipped tones back to the giggling idiot I first encountered. “You know, if there were more-”

“Don’t start,” I say. It was almost funny the first time, their pseudo-graphic description of what it must feel like to be eaten alive, but this isn’t the time. I have enough intrusive thoughts about going shambles as is without their help.

“Oh, fine, you're boring,” they say, raising the weapon, two-handed, all half remembered training and learned experience.

“Don’t,” I say, bringing my right hand, palm flat, up. “You have four bullets, and there's only one.”

Before they can protest, before they've even lowered the gun because I have no reason to care about being shot, I rush at the shambles, which is now much closer to the two of us, gripping my bat two handed.

This one’s so old that it only takes one swing to bash its head it. Second hit to make sure as it crumples. It’s not so old that it’s naked though, it’s wearing what looks like the remains of some kind of official uniform, paramedic, maybe?

“That thing must be at least five,” I say, backing away from the rapidly disintegrating corpse.

“Three,” Alan says. I turn to look at them, they're still standing nearer the ledge, gun now lowered again, in their right hand. They shrug, “at least where I was living.”

“You had a permanent home once?” I ask. It’s a sorta dumb question, not everyone has my semantic quirk of refusing to call staying in the towns ‘living.’

“Yes,” they say, “with a mother and father and everything.” They frown, adjusting the lab coat. “You don't live anywhere?”

“I mean,” I say, “I stay in one place, you know the shanty towns near the functional drawbridge?” they nod, “my partner and I stay there with some free.”

“You're not alone?” they ask, and I nod.

“You want to see it?” I say, not entirely sure where impulse to invite them comes from, exactly. Laina will kill me, or try to, shoot me, maybe, when I bring them back, but I don’t know how long they’ve been down there, and I want someone to speak to while I go back. And they have that luck that let them land on their feet. 

They nod. The motion is sudden, like their laughs, and they smile, a real smile. It’s just not broad enough to read as false, like the hundreds they’ve flashed me since we crossed paths. 

“Was it really necessary to go through the part with the ledge?” they asks, as I begin walking again. They’re following closely behind me, and I continue doing my best to ignore the fact that they’re holding the gun like they want to accidentally pull the trigger. Knowing them, they might actually want to. 

“Yes,” I say, “it’s the only path to the station.”

“So the exit is lower than that tunnel?” they say. Of all things they seem to be the most incredulous at that. 

I shrug, resisting the urge to look behind to check their face. “Basically, yeah- you ever been down here before?” I ask.

“I- have been down here for a time,” they say, “do you have food, where you stay?”

Oh. Oh. That’s- “How long have you been down here?” I ask, and their footsteps stop, then start again, a break in the pattern of their steps. 

“Time,” they say, “I don’t know, my watch-” they laugh, this laugh is the same sort of breaking their singing had been, “it’s gone, and anyway, batteries are hard to come by, since the world ended,” they say the last part like it’s meant to be a joke. “I have some functioning batteries,” they say, “actually. Maybe that will be useful to you.”

“Useful?” I ask, surprised. “Why that qualifier?”

Another break in the rhythm of their footsteps, “So that you might want to keep me,” they say, “I’ve found a lot, here, in the tunnels, off people, there are a lot of old shambles down here, from when they were building it, I think, and I want you to need me.”

“You don’t need to be necessary, not if you’ve not eaten for a long time,” I say, “you just need to help defend.”

“Okay,” they say, and they fiddle with the coat again. I notice for the first time a small shoulder bag, flat enough not to bulge under the coat- how tall was the person it was meant for, whoever it was whose name used to be on the entirely rubbed out metal name-pin? They’re tall, even when I’m not lying down, and the coat is still big on them. “I can shoot,” they say, and I nod. 

“Come on,” I say, sort of mimicking how they’d said it to me. “We’re almost there.”


	3. 3

“The coat’s my mom’s,” they say, sitting, feet planted solid on the ground, on a crate placed near the firepit in our place. “I can’t remember if the hat’s dad’s or Alex’s, really-”

“Your parents named you and your sibling “Alan” and “Alex”?” Laina interrupts. She’s standing near the doorway, ostensibly on her shift as guard but really just staring at Alan, watching them. I'm standing maybe halfway between them, trying to avoid kicking an even deeper dent in the dirt floor then there already is.

“Yes,” they say. They shrug. “It doesn’t matter, anyway, but yeah. The hat’s someone’s, that’s why I don’t take it off.”

“That’s sweet,” Laina says, only sort of sarcastic. “Keepsake. How long you live with your family?”

“I don’t understand,” they say, “always. That’s what you do. You live with your family when you’re young and then- yeah,” they say, vaguely gesturing. I assume they’re talking about the shambles, “and I never considered leaving after that.”

The bag is sitting on the ground next to them, but they’re still wearing the coat. “I mean,” Laina says, and I can see her realization that maybe our syntax isn’t quite that of someone else, “after?”

“Since, until only a short while ago,” they say, “I’m not joking when I talk about mouths,” they add, “though I don’t know if it counts.”

That manic grin is back. “They’re dead, aren’t they,” Laina says, and I sort of glare at her. Tact is in fact mostly a foreign concept to the both of us but she could at least  _ try _ . 

“Yes,” Alan says, “they are.” They grin bigger, but it’s tight, like the ‘smile’ of a stressed out dog. 

“Congratulations,” Laina says, “join the club of goddamn orphans. How old are you anyway? You’re older than us,” she says.

“Twenty-three, I think,” they say, “time went funny after.”

“Kid or older brother?” Laina is in interrogation mode, slouching in a way that emphasizes just how ridiculously tall she is instead of diminishing it. I think it only sort of works, and that’s probably because Alan’s sitting down. They’re only a little shorter than her. I guess it’s only fair that she’s asking all this, since I came back with nothing about this stranger other than a name and a certainty that they’re reborn, like we are.

“Kid,” they say, “you know I had more ammo than I needed, at first,” they say, “cause I was the one with the gun while we were scrounging. Our’s was a safe neighborhood, no need to leave, they’ll bring you food until they don’t because you know, there’s no they to bring food anymore,” and the smile persists as they’re staring at the plywood wall. This particular smile is dangerous, empty-eyed. I imagine the emptiness used to have tears in it. 

Laina nods at them, and there’s an understanding that I miss. I want to ask  _ Hey, what moment did you guys just share?  _ but I assume it has to do with the span of a year and a half that Laina does not talk about, and why exactly Alan only has four bullets left. I try not to think about what exactly that means. 

“I’m Laina,” she says. I hadn’t introduced her, hadn’t even thought to. Her voice is softer, and she sits on the ground next to them. “You know. Things will suck less eventually.”

“Comforting,” Alan says. “Presumably that means they will still suck.”

She shrugs. “Well yeah.” 

After a few moments of silence, she coughs and stands up, going back to standing by the door. 

“Do you have any place to stay?” she asks, still facing towards the wall. Alan shrugs. They kick against the base of the crate, crossing their arms. 

“Unless they’re planning to sleep in the tunnels, I don’t think so.” I’m not sure if I should be speaking, really, I’m bad at recognizing moments but this almost seems like one.  But if Alan’s not going to talk about where I found them, I should. Probably.

“If I do, do you think I would get swarmed as I sleep?” they ask.

_The feeling of waking up surrounded, being watched with nothing_ - I shake myself. 

“You okay?” Laina asks. Alan hasn’t noticed anything.

“No,” I say, “but you could die.”

“Isn’t that the plan?”

This isn’t cute, anymore, their almost-suicidalness. They’ve just said they’re 23 and- oh, right, I haven’t taken anything for a while, I’m not just tired the pain from the leg I broke today and the ache in my right shoulder that never leaves is coming back. 

“I don’t care if it is, I’m going to the stash,” I say, going past Laina and out the door. 

Yes, I’m being irritable but I can also feel the fire-hurt in my wrist from my bite mark, the fabric of the shirt I’m wearing suddenly too scratchy against it. 

Today is warm, the sort of almost-too-much dry heat that still makes me think of tagging along behind some group of older kids from my school, all of us going for ice cream near year’s end. I look at my feet as I walk. There is grass tangling out of the cracks in the road, the faded divider marks signaling to cars that haven’t worked for years now. 

Where I stay with Laina is a basic sort of shanty-house made out of the same plywood as all the other places that I pass by. They’re all tiny, and I don’t have to look up to hear the humming of the electrical wiring that connects all of them. They’re too close to the ground to be safe, I’ve seen Lainy and the other taller ones run into them on occasion, but that’s fine. Burns are easy to heal from, and this is the reborn part of the town.

It takes maybe ten minutes to get there. The stash is where one of the free stay, an older black woman with a shaved head, who, as far as anyone knows, has stayed here the longest. She keeps the stash partially because she’s a free, but mostly because she wouldn’t use pills anyway, unless she were really, really badly hurt. And, according to something Laina heard from one of the other reborn living here, she was something probably medical before everything, a doctor maybe? Whatever she was, she can keep all the various ways pain-pills of different kinds can fuck with the human body- even the screwy version rebirth gives someone.

“Hi,” I greet, bringing my hand up in an awkward half wave. She stays in what I assume used to be the controller’s house for the draw bridge, back when that was something manuel, a long time ago. “I ran out.”

“I would think so,” she says, and she disappears inside. “What color were the last ones you took?” she asks, “Red?”

“Yeah.” The overload feeling in my wrist in increasing, going up my arm and that entire side of my upper body feels too big now. I know it’s not withdrawal I've seen other people in the town go through that and this isn't it- but it makes me think of that. “Do you think I should kick?” I ask, resisting the urge to scratch at my bite.

“I don't know.” She hands me two little blue round ones, “here.”

“Should I kick?” I ask again, as I look down at my hand. “Two?”

“For Laina,” she says, “and it’s your choice.”

I down one of them, ignoring the burn in my chest from dry swallowing. I clench my fist around the second so I don't drop it. “I’ve got someone new at my place,” I say, waiting for it to kick in. It’s weird, I want my bat even though I know there's a fence, or at least some people on guard- Laina’s not the only one standing by a doorway looking out- but I still want that  _ knowledge _ .

“I heard,” she says, and I'm not surprised. “I’ll set aside rations for the next few days.”

“Thank you.” I can feel tension I didn't know I had in my chest uncoil, and it’s dumb. I know it’s dumb, I barely know this  _ no, kid doesn't work, they're five years older than me  _ guy, but I still want them not to starve. And I can get a pretty good idea what caused the singing and the forced smiles (and the four bullets left) just from watching them and I know at least in the towns, stuff like that doesn't happen so much, anymore.

I run flat out back to Laina, fist clenched tight enough that I can feel my nails cutting into my palm. My footsteps’ echoes sound like loud clapping, then dull thumping as I switch from the road to dirt.

“I’m back.” I burst through the door, looking behind myself without thinking about it. There isn't anything following me. 

Laina and Alan have switched places. Alan has the bag slung over one shoulder over the coat, gun back in their hand and Laina is sitting hunched over with her head in her hands.

I walk over to Laina and unclench my fist, showing her the blue pill hidden a little in the middle crease of my palm. “Here,” I say, and she takes it. I turn to Alan, “I hadn’t thought to ask if you-” I start, but they shake their head abortively.  _ No _ .

“I told them to grow up,” Laina states, voice flat. “Cause they’re still sad their parents are dead. Everyone’s parents are dead, that’s just a fact, now. They don’t have to be a baby about it.”

“I left you being your version of comforting.” She scowls at me. 

“Yeah but I didn’t think they were sad about their parents being dead,” she says, “I thought they were sad about I dunno, something else. That there’s no internet, I’m still sad about that sometimes.”

“Are you fucking...?” Alan starts, jerking back around to look at her. “Are you fucking with me?”

Before I can react or Laina can look up they turn. The smile’s the same as it was in the tunnels. “You...” they point the gun, holding it two handed, “you were sorrowful for me. And you  _ asked _ .”

“Yeah well I'm not fucking masturbating to the idea of being eaten alive, am I?” she retorts, nearly shouting. Her fists are clenched, but she's still looking down and not getting up.

“You had a moment,” I whisper, “and don't pretend.” I walk over to Alan. “What are you even doing?” I pull the gun out of their hands roughly. “This won't do anything but make noise and a hole, maybe force one of us to take a dose a little sooner.”

“I don't like lying,” is all they give as explanation.

“I'm not lying!” Laina says, “everyone’s parents are dead, it’s not  _ new _ !” 

“You asked,” Alan repeats, “and don't lie, just because those pills you're addicted to make you mad when they wear off.”

Laina doesn't reply. “I’m going to bed,” I declare abruptly, stepping past the firepit, the crate, and through the tarp-flap to the bedroom.

I sleep in what is basically a glorified nest. Or try to sleep, most of the time. And it’s not exactly night, so I'm not going to sleep, but I want out of a tense silence a nagging voice is saying is my fault. I'm the one who left two people with obviously conflicting ways of dealing with trauma in the same room alone with a gun.

The bedroom, which is the second the two ‘rooms’ in the place (the roof is taller here, because after all it was made from leaning scrap against the pitted concrete of this bridge, soon after, before I came here) has my stuff and Laina’s in it. She has a mattress.

I could have fled outside, instead of into the bedroom, but that means going outside. The jittery-paranoia is mostly gone but I still don't really want to. I've been on both my scrounge and pill get today, I don't need to do any more.

I realize I still have the gun in my hands. I fling it across the room without thinking whether that could make it go off or not. It doesn't. I look for my bat, I must have dropped it without thinking when I pulled the gun from Alan.

No talking from through the door, still. 

I curl up in my blankets, resisting the urge to pick at my bite. It doesn't hurt so much, right now. “Just let me grieve,” I hear Alan say. The sound of knocking their feet against the crate- Laina, then, it must be. She doesn’t answer.

“Do you light the fire at night?” Alan asks, eventually.

“We have a light,” she says, “but most of the power goes to the free.”

“Okay.”

“Grieve, but don’t freak Roe out to do so, okay?” Laina finally says. I ball up tighter, wondering now if I should pretend not to have heard all this. 

“Oh,” is all that Alan has to say.


End file.
